Tag Archives: Mel Gibson

It’s impossible to overstate what a profoundly, risibly bad movie Shyamalan has made with Signs. As the end credits started rolling, after the most disappointing “epilogue” Shyamalan could’ve come up with—it’s not just disappointing, it’s also pointless (pointless is the probably the best adjective to describe scenes in Signs)—my wife joked the movie took two weeks to film. To which I responded, “Thirteen and a half days longer than it took to write.” Because even with all the bad in Signs—and there’s so much bad—the writing is the worst.

And Shyamalan does this non-committal “camera as POV” thing—cinematographer Tak Fujimoto should be ashamed of himself for enabling Shyamalan to do it and embarrassed with how poorly he shoots the thing; Signs looks terrible–so, in other words, there’s a lot of competition for what’s worst in Signs. Shyamalan’s direction of the talking heads scenes—and there so many talking heads scenes because Shyamalan, who’s ego is literally oozing from every grain of film–involves characters almost looking directly into the camera but then just a little diagonally. Shyamalan is going for something with Signs, with his very intentional direction, his very intentional casting of himself as the guy who kills star Mel Gibson’s wife in a traffic accident (Shyamalan was asleep at the wheel) and vehicular manslaughter isn’t a thing and it just turns reverend Gibson into an atheist (but they never say the a-word because while Signs is definitely a millimeter thinly veiled Christian movie, there’s still the veil and it’s never going to get confrontational about it). Also… Shyamalan wrote the movie, so he did kill the wife.

Symbolism. Pass it on. Like the dog tchotchkes at the end to remind the viewer there are dogs, even if everyone forgot about them because they don’t matter because Signs is insipid.

Signs is full of symbolism but not really full because there’s not much because Shyamalan gets frequently bored with things like mise en scène because there’s better things to do like write the awful scenes between Gibson and his family. I went into Signs at least thinking Gibson would get through it unscathed (performance-wise). No. No. Not at all. It’s a godawful performance. He is incapable of pretending to be a former reverend, a widow, a husband, a father, a brother, and a farmer. The scenes with Gibson and kids Rory Culkin (who’s kind of terrible; it’s not his fault, Shyamalan seems to be having him do a Macaulay impression circa Uncle Buck but he’s still bad) and Abigail Breslin, who gets terrible material and terrible direction, but is still phenomenal. Shyamalan can’t figure out how to direct her because she’s not terrible like the rest of his cast.

Though, not Joaquin Phoenix. He’s leagues better than Gibson, though it helps Phoenix’s character is a dope. Gibson’s ostensibly functional enough to get to this point in his life—whereas Phoenix apparently always had Gibson to lean on—yet Gibson is real dumb. Real dumb.

Other bad things about Signs? Cherry Jones. She’s awful. Ted Sutton is so bad SAG should’ve shut the production down. Bad editing from Barbara Tulliver; Tulliver’s editing, cut for cut, is probably even worse than Fujimoto’s photography. Tulliver—presumably unintentionally—screws up all of Shyamalan’s jump scares. Larry Fulton’s production design is bad.

James Newton Howard’s score, while inexplicably a complete Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock rip-off (oh, wait, was Signs in the middle of Shyamalan being the new Hitchcock era), and poorly utilized, isn’t poorly composed. It’s competent, just misapplied. Everything else is incompetent and misapplied.

I was looking through Rodale for a good, fresh adjective to describe Signs but I think vapid does the job best. It’s worse than I expected it to be, which is saying a lot, but it also surprised me. I had no idea Gibson would so spectacularly fail or Phoenix would be—with a lot of conditions—so much better. And I guess Shyamalan managed to be inventively terrible, it’s just he’s a pointless kind of inventively terrible.

Oh, you know what… there’s the word.

Puerile.

Signs is puerile.

CREDITS

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan; director of photography, Tak Fujimoto; edited by Barbara Tulliver; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Larry Fulton; costume designer, Ann Roth; produced by Frank Marshall, Sam Mercer, and Shyamalan; released by Touchstone Pictures.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is the story of a burnt-out, desolate man who learns to live again. Sort of. It’s more the story of a burnt-out, desolate man who finds himself babysitting sixty feral children who think he’s a messiah. But not really that story either, because Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome doesn’t put much thought into story. Once writers Terry Hayes and co-director Miller, get Mad Max (Mel Gibson) beyond the Thunderdome portion of the film, it’s just a variety on nonsense until the grand action finale.

Only that grand action finale isn’t particularly grand. There’s impressive stunt work and practical car effects, but there’s no animosity between the pursuers and the pursued. While Tina Turner is mad at Gibson, it’s a general anger without much intensity. Directors Miller and Ogilvie, along with Hayes, do nothing to emphasize any of the character relationships in the film. There are always adorable feral kids cloying at Gibson and none make much of an impression. Even Helen Buday, who should be Gibson’s sidekick or dramatic foil, just ends up in the background. Making the feral kids either non-verbal or blathering nonsense means Thunderdome just gets to imply character development without ever having to commit time or energy to it.

Gibson does better with the implied character development than anyone else. Even though the film’s indifferent to his character’s presence, Gibson’s not. He’s kind of blah with hair extensions growl-bantering with Turner, but he does get in a couple good moments with the kids. A lot of the other scenes with the kids are terrible, but there are a couple of good ones.

In addition to the troubled script and direction, Beyond Thunderdome is always lacking in some technical department at some time or another. Half of Dean Semler’s photography is subpar. Even though there’s clearly this elaboration exterior set for Turner’s “Bartertown,” the nighttime scenes in specific locations are always obvious on a soundstage. The film’s got the right grain, but not the right light.

As far as the acting goes, it’s all fine. The stuff with the kids–the Disney version of a post-apocalyptic Lord of the Flies–is a complete misfire (though it does feature some of Semler and Jarre’s best work in the film, when Ogilvie shoots white sands like a resort commercial). So when the kids are annoying, it’s not their fault. It’s Ogilvie, Miller, and Hayes’s fault. And Buday is fine. It’s too bad she doesn’t get better material.

But all through Beyond Thunderdome, Ogilvie and Miller never let the film get too long or too unpleasant or too precious. It’s tedious, but there’s a building intensity. That intensity fizzles out completely in the third act and stops Thunderdome fast. There’s no attempt to recover, just the transition into a bad epilogue sequence.

The whole thing feels like a forfeit.

ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie; written by Terry Hayes and Miller; director of photography, Dean Semler; edited by Richard Francis-Bruce; music by Maurice Jarre; production designer, Graham ‘Grace’ Walker; produced by Miller; released by Warner Bros.

Lethal Weapon 3 is an expert action movie. Director Donner, cinematographer Jan de Bont, editors Robert Brown and Battle Davis do phenomenal work. Even though the cop action thriller plot of the film is its least compelling–dirty ex-cop Stuart Wilson is funding real estate development through arms dealing–those sequences are still good. The actors carry over everything from their stronger subplots into those scenes.

Mel Gibson gets the showier subplot, romancing a likeminded–and similarly martial arts trained–fellow detective, played by Rene Russo. The ever-about-to-retire Danny Glover has something of a family drama, but also a crisis of character arc. Joe Pesci is around to make plot contrivances a little more palatable. He’s also great for the other actors. Everyone reacts well to Pesci, even if they don’t have a lot of dialogue.

Because Donner is excellent at directing the actors in this film. The sequence where Gibson realizes Russo’s a little bit of a goofball (after the audience is already in on the joke) is beautifully done. Gibson and Glover do get their moments–lots of male-bonding, lots of man tears–but Gibson’s scenes with Russo are basically a showcase for her. She brings such a strong personality to the character right off the bat, the subsequent character reveals are basically mini-delights for the audience. And Gibson and Glover. It’s a phenomenal part and Russo’s fantastic.

Between the two leads, Glover gets the better personal story arc. He gets the harder material–he also gets some great comic material–while Gibson basically just toggles between fun and crazy. Gibson’s really good at the toggling and there’s a maturity to his performance–just because the beast looks upon the face of beauty, it doesn’t mean he’s as one dead, not in Lethal Weapon 3.

The score–one assumes Michael Kamen did all the Michael Kamen sounding action music while Eric Clapton and David Sanborn handled the soul-searching, but who knows–is omnipresent and occasionally too much. It’s too slick against that beautiful de Bont photography and Lethal Weapon 3 starts to feel plastic. But then the actors do something, something in their performance, something in the script, and the integrity comes through. Sometimes the music even ends up helping with it.

Solid supporting turns from Steve Kahan, Damon Hines and Gregory Millar. Glover’s family otherwise doesn’t have enough to do–Darlene Love’s in maybe three scenes, gets one good one. Ebonie Smith has zip. Traci Wolfe has a couple decent moments, but again, not enough. Lethal Weapon 3 is a strange picture in it having too many good things going on while it still needs to be an action movie. Going longer wouldn’t have helped either, the pacing is perfect.

Stuart Wilson’s villain is a bit of a liability. Donner uses him sparingly, or always with a better performance in the same scene. Except maybe two with chief henchman Nick Chinlund–the villains in Lethal Weapon 3 are really lame, thank goodness the rest of the film makes up for it.

Also want to mention the great production design from James H. Spencer.

Lethal Weapon 3 is a great time at the movies. Donner finds just the right mix of comedy, action, drama and suspense.

★★½

CREDITS

Directed by Richard Donner; screenplay by Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen, based on a story by Boam and characters created by Shane Black; director of photography, Jan de Bont; edited by Robert Brown and Battle Davis; music by Michael Kamen, Eric Clapton and David Sanborn; production designer, James H. Spencer; produced by Joel Silver and Donner; released by Warner Bros.

Mad Max 2 might be the perfect example of pure action. Besides a couple extended dialogue moments–maybe the only times Mel Gibson’s protagonist gets to talk without Brian May’s music over him or just the fantastic sound effects drowning him out–it’s all action. It’s kind of incredible how far director Miller pushes the idea of not needing dialogue.

Sure, the film has some exposition, but the villains probably talk more than the good guys. Except Bruce Spence. He starts out as Gibson’s prisoner, then becomes his affable sidekick. He doesn’t hold any grudges for Gibson cuffing him to a tree in the middle of nowhere….

Miller gets away with so much in the film–there’s a bunch with these people Gibson’s helping and Miller just knows how to do a short scene then get out. The viewer’s memory of the scene makes more of an impact than the actual scene.

The film delivers amazing vehicular action. There’s time for humor–most of it coal black–there’s time for flirting, but there’s never any confusion. Max is about real cars doing amazing things. The practical effects are phenomenal.

Gibson’s great. Almost silent, his intense and still somehow muted expressions make the film work.

The supporting acting’s all good, but without standouts. Except maybe Emil Minty, who’s perfect as the Feral Kid. That character name says it all.

The film moves quickly, only slowing in the last act… when Miller briefly gets too cute.

Otherwise, Max’s wonderfully lean and mean.

★★★

CREDITS

Directed by George Miller; written by Terry Hayes, Miller and Brian Hannant; director of photography, Dean Semler; edited by Michael Balson, David Stiven and Tim Wellburn; music by Brian May; produced by Byron Kennedy; released by Warner Bros.

Posts navigation

Search

Search for:

Latest ebook collection

Giant-Size Superhero Cinema! Over 100 reviews!

Latest ★★★★ Catalog Capsule

The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936, John Ford)-Outstanding, ambitious biopic of Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter), the doctor who unknowingly treated John Wilkes Booth and ended up tried for treason for his trouble. Fantastic performances from Baxter and Gloria Stuart as Mrs. Mudd. But Ford's direction--along with Nunnally Johnson's script--really put the film over the top; it's beautifully produced, with Ford ably toggling between the long conversations and the intense dramatic moments. Just great.
DVD, Streaming.Continue reading →